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Reaction Times
''Understanding Reaction Time Credit to Proto-Mind for his research on the Subject When one speaks about reaction time on FactPile, and perhaps other message boards, the words "supersonic", "hypersonic", "high hypersonic", "relativistic", or "FTL" are used to refer to a character's RT. The more appropriate thing to refer these things by is "millisecond" (ms), or "microsecond" (μs), or "nanosecond" (ns). A character who can dodge bullets would fall under ms RT. Yeah, speaking of RT this way makes dodging bullets look like nothing because humans react to things by the millisecond. I like to differentiate here, however, by calling it "improved reaction time", but only with respect to ms RT, nothing else. Another thing when it comes to RT is that people tend to ask under what Mach number that RT would fall under. The thing is, RT doesn't fall under Mach's number. I'm guilty of doing this as well, but I realized this was like the whole "supersonic", "hypersonic", &c. RT. Why doesn't RT fall under Mach's number? Because, Mach's number is applied only to speed, not time, and RT is all about time, not speed. Yes, speed is involved, but only because in order to figure out the time it took for an object to travel, it has to be distance divided by speed (t = d/s). Now one of the more important things about RT is also where the character is located, and where the object is initially located before it is fired. Let's say someone, Person A, is standing 152 meters away (500 ft.) from Person B. Person B has a gun that fires bullets at 457 m/s (1,500 ft/s). He fires a round at Person A. Since we know the distance between the two and the speed the bullet is traveling, we would take t = d/s and learn that Person A would need to react in less than 0.202 seconds, which is the same as 20.2 ms. Say Person A dodges. That's great. We have an estimate of his RT. The problem I see at FP and other message boards like it is that if a character can dodge bullets, this means he or she can dodge bullets at any range, even possibly point-blank (0.91 m.; 3 ft.). Going back to Person A, all we know is that if he is at 152 meters or farther, he can dodge a bullet traveling 457 m/s. This also means he can dodge slower bullets at a closer range, but that should also be tested anyway to see if Person A's RT is 20.2 ms or higher. If Person A can dodge a bullet traveling 457 m/s at 152 meters, it doesn't mean he can dodge it at 61 meters (200 ft.), unless proven. To truly find out how fast a character can react to a projectile or an attack, the best method would be to have that character at point-blank or closer. Otherwise, the only reliable estimate is from the distance and speed already demonstrated. Of course, this can possibly cause outliers. What I mean is that if a character is at point-blank range and dodges a bullet traveling 457 m/s earlier on, but later demonstrates less-than-stellar RT feats, then the lower RT should be called out on. And by the way, lower RT is better because it means the person required lesser time to react. Now here is a link I left for light. Light travels 0.3048 m. (1 ft.) per nanosecond. The link shows what it would be like at a pico- level, I believe. Enjoy! http://web.media.mit.edu/~raskar/trillionfps/ '''See also:' Lifting Strength Striking Strength Speed Durability Destructive Capacity Bullet Timer Category:Character Attributes and Concepts